In the packaging of yoghurt, pudding, and similar foodstuffs it is standard to inject a single dose, normally about ounces, of the foodstuff into a disposable cup carried passed the dosing machine on a conveyor that operates stepwise. After the cup is filled, a foil is welded to its rim and a cap is applied. In the simplest system a row of nozzles extends transversely to the conveyor which moves transverse rows of the cups stepwise past the nozzles. At each step each nozzle deposits a dose of the food stuff into the underlying cup, and the cups may be raised up from their respective seats in the conveyor to receive the respective doses.
German utility model 295 12 257 describes a system where each nozzle has a pair of passages to which are fed different foodstuffs, for instance vanilla and chocolate pudding. In addition the individual cup lifters are constructed so that they can rotate the cups as they are filled, creating an attractive swirling pattern and nice mix of the ingredients. In this system a complex gripper arrangement is used to hold the bases of the cups. Each nozzle has a pair of downwardly opening outlet passages, one of which is fed from a supply directly overhead and the other of which is fed from another supply via a horizontal connecting conduit.
The system of German patent 4,226,566 of Janek describes a system where the cups of each row are filled with different foodstuffs so that they can be packaged directly as an assortment, with the cups connected together by frangible webs. In this arrangement the cups pass through eight abreast and four different sources are each connected to two of the nozzles, so that it is possible to vary the mix of the assortments by filling a cup with one flavor and the cup following it with another. Such an apparatus is quite complex and is only really adapted to its one purpose.